A New Perspective

 “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”–Henry Miller Sundays are delicious days.  Finally, the work-weary can feast on time.  We say of Monday, the most unpopular day of the week, we’ll “hit the ground running.” We lament that until the weekend we “won’t have time to turn around.”  But today I do.  And I did. In Nashville, Sundays began on…

Spring Fling with Andalusia

There are so many precious moments we take for granted or don’t appreciate until later. Then there are those that while IN the moment, we realize we are happy and THIS time we will never forget. I knew on April 3, 2015 I was in one of those moments. Since reading Paulo Coehlo’s The Alchemist–an inspiration for my move abroad– I’ve wanted to see Andalusia–the…

Easter in Europe

It’s good to be back on the blog and away in Spain.  I’m writing again, finally, from my balcony in Tarifa in another Cádiz– not the one beside Kentucky lake where I grew up, but in a province of Andalusia.  From here Santiago, seeker in The Alchemist, set out on his adventure. Here I’m taking a much needed break from mine. As the fog…

Christmas Day in London

Christmas Day we attended the service at Westminster Abbey, another gift.  Seats had been reserved months in advance but days before our trip someone returned three.  The sermon referenced the truce on December 25, 1914 between English and German soldiers.  More on the story here.  As we sang hymns and heard the children’s choir in a cathedral built in 1066 where William the Conqueror…

Christmas Eve in London

Seems like old times.  My children are asleep in the next room and I’m up early writing.  The Three Musketeers are together again. We spent a Happy Christmas in Merry Ole England, my first love as an English lit teacher when I began traveling abroad.  My son wanted to see London, and my daughter has loved it since she, my niece, and I toured…

Past, Present, Future Dickens of a Christmas

I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. –A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving, made a US federal holiday by Abraham Lincoln in the midst of the Civil War, is still a day set aside to stop the striving, shopping, doing (unless volunteering to feed the hungry and shelter the cold) in order to JUST BE…with family, with friends, with our Creator from whom all blessings flow.  The older I get the more I am determined to…

There Is a Season

They say they built the train tracks over the Alps before there was a train that could make the trip. They built it anyway. They knew one day the train would come. Any arbitrary turning along the way,and I would be elsewhere. I would be different. What are four walls, anyway? They are what they contain.The house protects the dreamer. Unthinkably good things can…

Native Son and Mom on a Mission

Andrew, Stephen, and John Teaching has brought amazing students into my life. And families. The Gentuso clan is one gang I’ll never forget. The three boys’ ACT scores were in triple digits while their wrestling pins racked up powerful points. I loved that they were avid readers, creative, interesting, and best of all, all heart. Knowing them has made my life richer. Stephen, the…

Summer Art and Play Dates

Like freebirds we picked up bright and shining things along the way…good conversation, laughs, leisure. We met artists who reminded us we are all made in the image of the Great Creator. By honoring their inner children with their work, they invited ours to join and play.

Farewell 2010…and a decade

While many may think I’m at a salsa party on NYE, I’m not. I wanted a last night by the tree, my son in the next room playing video games. He’ll graduate in 2012…too soon…and I haven’t had the chance over Christmas break to look back on the past year and thank God for all His blessings. Many firsts in 2010…my students doing a…

Starbucks in Reality: Final Chapter of “Imposter”

Or maybe you’re the female Charlie Brown…it’s Halloween and you’re left holding a bag of rocks.